In The End
by AntipodeanOpaleye
Summary: Ben’s reflections from the afterlife on his own life, his past, what he’s learned along the way, his siblings, and what ultimately led to his downfall.


In The End  
  
By AntipodeanOpaleye  
  
Disclaimer: Everything you recognize from any other source either doesn't belong to me or is a purely coincidental occurrence. Anything that you've never seen probably belongs to me. I write for enjoyment and no copyright infringement is intended. Oh, and In The End belongs solely to Linkin Park.  
  
Author's Note: I'm really not sure where this fic came from. Just one of those things that my muse wouldn't quite bothering me about until I wrote it. It just popped into my head when I was listening to my Linkin Park CDs. I guess I've always thought of Ben as horrifyingly misunderstood and lonely, but not completely psychotic. I mean, yeah, he was a serial killer, but I guess I'd have liked it better if we'd seen that he'd still had some good in him. Or at least some turning point that led to his downfall. Anyway, this is from Ben's POV, sort of his reflections on his own life and just life in general from the afterlife. Hope you like it.  
  
  
  


  
**_  
It starts with  
_**

  
Nothing. There is no beginning. In fact, there is no real end either. And even if there were, they really wouldn't matter. Because it's the journey, and what you learn from the people, the places, and the events that transpire along the way, that really matters.  


**__**

One thing  


  
I was born to kill. It wasn't for a very long time afterwards was it brought to my attention that such an act was wrong. And, though some might say it was too late, I did realize that what I was doing was seen, in a sense, as wrong.  


  
**_I don't know why  
_**

  
I'm not sure why everything is so much clearer now than it was then. At that point, it was just a mad dash for power; that adrenaline rush of the chase, the preparation for the kill. Now, I can see why I did what I did. Why I hurt so many people. I understand.  


**__**

  
It doesn't even matter how hard you try  


  
I tried so hard. I was a good soldier. I did what I was told. I didn't screw things up, or disobey orders. It was a simple, and, for me at least, an acceptable life. But once we got out, it was no longer simple, and no longer acceptable. Not for me.

**__**

  
Keep that in mind I designed this rhyme  


  
When we were back at Manticore, I used to tell everyone stories. About what I thought the outside was like, about the Blue Lady. It made things so much more lively and animated. It let us all know that we were cared for. That, maybe, in some way, we were loved. It kept the things we were forced to do from building, and the things they did to us from becoming too much. But outside, things were already 'too much,' and I just couldn't handle them.  


  
**_To explain in due time  
_**

  
I was weak in that sense. I'll admit it. I didn't have what it took to survive out there. I did what I could for as long as I could stand it. I moved around, lived so many different lives that I'd lost count. But in all of the people that I'd invented, that I'd pretended to be, I'd never been myself. Not even in a small sense. I was so frightened by who and what I was that I wouldn't let any of the real me show. I think that was my first mistake.  


  
**_All I know  
_**

  
I hid myself. My true nature. It was foolish. I now realize that I could've been myself without killing people. Without orders. Without Superiors and Commanding Officers. Without designations. I could've just been Ben. And if I had known that, I would probably still be with my family. I'd have gotten to see them all. And they'd have gotten to see me. And they'd have seen Ben. And I've no doubt that they would have loved Ben. But such storybook ending are usually for just that. Storybooks.  


**__**

  
Time is a valuable thing  


  
Time was another thing that was never on my side. Time certainly enjoyed throwing curve balls my way when I was lucky if I struck out without getting mauled with a fastball or a slider. Sorry, roommate in Boston was a baseball fan since way back when. But seriously? Time is really the essence of life, just sped up a bit. I mean, people are always complaining about the things that make their life so horrible. But isn't life determined by time? I mean, my life would've been different if I'd been born in another time, before Manticore, wouldn't it have been? If you ask me, time isn't just another complication in life. Life is one of the many complications associated with time. Another of the enlightening conclusions I've drawn recently.  


  
**_Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings  
_**

  
Time may fly when you're having fun, but time out travels the speed of light when you're lonely, confused, and depressed. That I can testify to without a doubt. And unfortunately, I became a victim of the premature flight of time.  


  
**_Watch it count down to the end of the day_**  


  
The end of the day? There is no such thing. Because when your day ends, someone else's is only beginning. So if there were truly an 'end of the day,' whenever it occurred, it would imply that one person's day was more significant than the other's. If your sun sets, your day wraps up, and mine is only starting, are you saying that your life is more important than mine? That your entitled to a day that begins and ends by the rules, of your own accord, uninterrupted, and that I am doomed to live knowing that you've already ended your day, and that my end will never bring closure, because your beginning will be taking place? That my start will never greet me that sense of a fresh new day, because you've just slit the throat and finished off of your day? No, that doesn't work. Not for me.  


  
**_The clock ticks life away  
_**

  
It's somewhat unnerving to think back to the times I sat in the apartments, the dorms, and the houses I'd lived in, regarding a clock for the time. And regarding time as just a simple measurement that normal people learned about in primary school. It may seem exaggerated, but when logically thought out, the clock really does tick life away. Slowly but surely. My own clock tracking the time left until my own self-destruction.  


  
**_It's so unreal  
_**

  
Believe it or not, everything seems much more real when I reflect on it now from this surreal setting. Ironic, isn't it? But not exactly unexpected. You know how sometimes in life you just walk along, going through the motions, and everything seems so unreal? Like you still dreaming? Or you're stuck in a nightmare? Ever thought that maybe you really were living a lie? Just maybe that everything was simply a figment of your imagination?  


  
**_Didn't look out below_**  


  
Looking out below is for people who doubt themselves. For example, if someone is about to take the plunge off of a building and they take too much time studying what awaits them below, they are obviously questioning their decision to go through with the jump. On the other hand, if you simply throw caution to the wind, fling out you arms, and embrace the horrifying exhilaration of the fall, trusting yourself totally and completely, never seconding guessing your own intuition. Taking the risk. Never fearing the reaper. But who's to say that doubt is the lesser path?  


**__**

  
Watch the time go right out the window  


  
Ever just sit and stare out the window? Watch the world pass you by? All the while thinking about all of the missed opportunities, the 'what if's' and the 'if only's' until the tears threatened to fall? Then when you come to, it all just seems so petty? What most people don't realize is that it only seems petty because if you thought otherwise, someone else would think less of you? This is just my view on things, but I believe that the things that run through one's mind during those periods of complete, pure thought are the most valuable in life.  


  
**_Trying to hold on but didn't even know  
_**

  
I remember near the end, when all I had was blind faith. I held onto my faith in her. I held onto my faith that someone could help me out of the hell that I'd dropped into. I held on for dear life to what shards of sanity I had left. I wasn't a lost cause. I was just the lost part. All I needed was a nudge in the right direction, and some support, and maybe I could've broke away from the life I'd made for myself. Maybe. But I'll never know now.  


**__**

  
I wasted it all  


  
There was a lot of time I wasted. I mean, we are living on borrowed time. And if your going to risk damaging something that isn't even yours, you have to put your heart on the line. Otherwise, you're never really living. You're wasting the short time you have to make a difference. To learn. To help. And, most importantly, love. If you don't, you're throwing away your life, your own slice of that borrowed time. And the owner won't be happy when he figures it out. When he finds out you consumed the time you borrowed from him and did nothing with it.  


  
**_Just to watch you go_**  


  
There are so many people I just watched walk out of my life. All of my siblings, my family, my life, all gone. Without a word. Didn't even try to contact me or find out where I was, if I was even alive. I never held it against them though. Not until later. I began to move from life to life, and at that point, leaving people and people leaving you was as essential to life as air. And then, things changed just a bit. A plot twist, so to speak. When I was about sixteen or seventeen, I fell in love. Alexa was my everything. I lived for her. She consumed me, and I loved it. Every minute of it. We were engaged. But then she was killed. An ex-boyfriend, if I'm not mistaken. And I died with her. Any chance of Ben emerging to the world was either destroyed then and there, or buried too deep to dig out alone. He was the first kill I made. I wanted to die and be with her, but I was too cowardly. Or too brave. I'm not sure. But I began killing more and more people in an attempt to kill myself, to heal the wounds that can could never stop bleeding. That's when I became bitter. And yet, even then, I still just wanted someone to talk to, to care for me in my time of need. It was then that I began to blame my siblings for deserting me. There was no one left who cared. Except, maybe.  


**__**

  
I kept everything inside and even though I tried   


  
The Blue Lady. She was forgiving. She cared. And so, in hopes to receive some of her mercy, I offered my victims' teeth to her. A sign of loyalty. Of desperation. That was the situation in a nutshell. I was desperate. I kept all of my feelings, all of my frustration and devastation inside. I tried to keep it together. But that attempt was futile. I think I knew that before I acted, before I even thought about killing the man who'd murdered my fiancée. I knew that with everything I was feeling, I couldn't stay completely sane for long. And I was right.  


  
**_It all fell apart  
_**

  
It all fell apart. Understatement of the Year, yet the most true explanation of what happened. It all fell apart. Max found me, Manticore found me. But they didn't find me. They never found Ben, because they never tried. They found X5-493, who I had become for the very first time. Because even as a kid, I was never the soldier they wanted me to be. Not really.  


**__**

What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when  


  
I supposed I did receive my mercy from the Blue Lady. It was all so quick. And Max was the one to do it. That was another interesting component in the mix. But here I am, now, not then. And I question what happened that night. And all of the time that led up to it. I definitely question it.  
  


  
  
**_I tried so hard  
  
And got so far  
  
But in the end  
  
It doesn't even matter  
  
I had to fall  
  
To lose it all  
  
But in the end  
  
It doesn't even matter  
  
_**

  
  
**_One thing  
_**

  
I was scared when I killed for the first time in so long. It felt so strange and foreign, but so natural and perfect at the same time. And the way I felt at the time, even though it had been a year before I'd convinced myself to go through with it, that perfect and natural feeling was very tempting. I think that was the one thing that made my decision to do what I did.  


  
**_I don't know why  
_**

  
I picked my victims. Some people thought I was just a random killer. No, I wasn't that far gone. Sometimes, I was unsure of why I chose certain targets. But in my subconscious, I knew exactly why I scouted the particular prey. I watched people carefully. And many people I just left alone. But every so often, I'd find someone planning to kill someone else. Planning to inflict the same type of pain on another as was inflicted on me. That same weight on yet another soul. In those instances, I felt, and showed, no mercy. I definitely know why I chose them. I most certainly know why.  


  
**_It doesn't even matter how hard you try  
_**

  
I tried to stop myself, knowing how my struggle for justice would be misinterpreted. How everything I was striving to do would be seen by the world. But a part of me didn't want to be stopped. And there is no battle more hopeless than that of the mind fighting itself.  


  
**_Keep that in mind I designed this rhyme  
_**

  
I planned my strategies. When, where, how. It was something I was good at back at Manticore. Devising the perfect attack. But I was never very proficient at carrying out those plans. Some things never changed. That was one of the reasons they picked up on what I was doing. I was so freaked after the kill, I just fled. I never took the time to cover my tracks as well as I should have. I could've. But I didn't.  


**__**

  
To remind myself how

  
  
I would find the appropriate place to make my offerings to the Blue Lady in each area I was in. And whenever I went there, after sunset, I usually stayed for quite a long time. A few times I stayed all night. People would come and try to talk to me. Tell me that if I needed anything, to let them know. And if I'd been stronger, I might have taken them up on it before it the downward spiral had started to pick up speed. But I was weak. And all I had was myself.  


**__**

  
I tried so hard  


  
I was out of control. I was so out of control. I was no longer able to control my actions. All I knew was that I felt that I had a purpose. And that was what I had wanted; a purpose. Something to keep me from wasting away in sorrow. But all the while, there was that piece that still knew that I had a chance, screaming that I had to stop. That I needed to find someone to help me. Someone who would understand. Zack, Krit, Zane, someone. Someone who knew the real me. The real Ben. But, somehow, that piece had been silenced, never to be heard again.  


**__**

  
In spite of the way you were mocking me  


  
The voices mocked me. Voices from my past. I remember Lydecker the clearest. I heard his voice egging me on. Telling me that it was my duty to kill. To carry out the mission. And I refused to listen to him. He was the enemy. But then, when I wouldn't obey orders, he'd begin the taunting. He'd tell me that I couldn't do it. That I was a failure. That I was defective. That I should be sent to the anomalies. I'd always been afraid of the anomalies. But the person I had become could handle failure. It wasn't until later that I realized that what I was doing was, in itself, a failure.  


  
**_Acting like I was part of your property  
_**

  
Manticore, the voices, spoke as if I belonged to them. As if I were their property. What they didn't realize was that I was no longer anyone's property. I was no longer myself. I was no longer someone I recognized. Maybe physically. Maybe. But in no other way was I myself. And if I didn't belong to my own identity, my own fate, I couldn't belong to anyone.  


  
**_Remembering all the times you fought with me  
_**

  
I remember all of times I fought with myself during the kills. Some of them struggled, thinking they could get away. Some of them were submissive, and really didn't care. Others just broke down and cried. I did very much the same things afterwards. I would struggle for control, what was left of Ben against the dominating 493, and always lose. I would submit to the power that took over my thoughts, tired of trying, tired of everything. And then, I would break down and cry. The real me would break down and cry. Ben would cry.  


  
**_I'm surprised it got so far  
_**

  
In a way, I am surprised it got as far as it did; with so much damage done. But then, I was surprised that it was stopped so soon. And I'm grateful that I allowed them to find me. That they were able to end the pain and the suffering. The only thing that I'm ungrateful for was that they weren't allowed the time to help me to turn my life around.  


  
**_Things aren't the way they were before  
_**

  
Life, for me, was always changing. From slavery, to loneliness, to nomad, to love, to devastation, to anger, to loss, to confusion, to ultimately, the fear that caused my fall. When I lost control of everything. When I could no longer find myself. When everything was closing in. When I realized that the wounds would never heal.  


  
**_You wouldn't even recognize me anymore  
_**

  
No one will ever recognize my struggle. My pain. My frustration. No one can feel exactly the way I did. No one can know exactly how everything that happened effected me. How much I just needed someone, just needed companionship. How I just needed love. But, there might be one who can understand. Just one.  


  
**_Not that you knew me back then  
_**

  
Not many people knew me. Not the real me. Because I didn't let them. I should have let them. Even my brothers and sisters. They knew who I was up to the age of nine. I matured so much. I was proud of who I'd become. But I was disappointed that I never allowed myself to be just me. I'm not sure when it all became so broken. But whenever it was, that was when I became ashamed of who I'd become. What I'd submitted to. What I'd allowed to be done to myself.  


  
**_But it all comes back to me in the end  
_**

  
Now that I see all of this from a different perspective, I see all of the opportunities I had to turn it all around. I mean, every moment is a chance to turn it around, right? But then I think back to how I felt, how overwhelmingly confusing everything was. How consuming the experience turned out to be. And I realize that no matter how many 'what if's' I can find, it isn't going to change things. No matter how much I want them to.  


  
**_You kept everything inside and even though I tried   
_**

  
When Max came to find me, I was surprised. I knew one of them would try, but I never suspected her. But then again, she always was the one with the spirit. And when I saw her, I was both terrified and thankful at the same time. I figured Zane or Zack would come, or maybe Jondy. She was always a take-charge type of girl. But not Max. Max wasn't even in the picture as far as that was concerned. But I was happy to see her. I mean, she was my sister; I loved her, I'd missed her. But what was she going to do? Help me? Or turn me in? Of that, I still wasn't sure of.  


  
**_It all fell apart  
_**

  
Manticore was closing in on us. They were coming. I knew that. She knew that. And I think she would have helped me, under different circumstances. But I was injured. And I wasn't about to have the death of my sister added to all of the blood on my hands. I wouldn't let them take me back. I would not let them have 493 and Ben as well. Never. I knew that I couldn't let that happen. And so I asked her to kill me. A quick, clean death. It was what had to be done. What I wanted to be done.  


  
**_What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when  
_**

  
Your eyes that night will forever haunt me, Max. As mine will undoubtedly haunt you. But not in a bad way, Maxie. Don't ever think that. And don't blame yourself for anything that happened that night. It wasn't you fault. But it was kind of ironic, don't you think? I was ready to die. But you? You weren't ready to kill. And, being who we were at Manticore, the obedient little soldiers, who would have thought we would have met after so much time in the way we did?  
  
  
  
**_I tried so hard  
  
And got so far  
  
But in the end  
  
It doesn't even matter  
  
I had to fall  
  
To lose it all  
  
But in the end  
  
It doesn't even matter_**  
  


  
  
  


**__**

I've put my trust in you  
  
Pushed as far as I can go  
  
And for all this  
  
There's only one thing you should know  
  
  
  
And I know that you feel guilty for leaving me there. Don't. It all turned out right, whether you can see that or not. It's better now, for both of us. The Good Place is so much better than even I could have imagined. The only thing I regret is not being able to say goodbye the way I wanted to. There was so much I wanted to say then, things that words probably couldn't have described. But fate wasn't feeling generous, and we were running out of time.  
  
  
  
  
  
**_I've put my trust in you  
  
Pushed as far as I can go  
  
And for all this  
  
There's only one thing you should know_**  
  
  
  
  
  
Max, there are so many things that you should know. Things that I knew then, and things that I've only begun to realize. But now, you're going to have to figure all of this out for yourself. But I think you'll be able to do it. You've got a lot of great people helping you out. But I do have some advice to offer you, little sister. Don't make my mistakes. Appreciate those around you, the ones that are there no matter what, and who accept you for who you are, and not who you pretend to be. And as hard as it is, some types of love can wear out. And as much as it hurts, you have to move on. Love someone again. Don't hold out forever, because if you do, you'll realize too late that you were wrong not to take the chance. And you know who you should take a chance on. And you won't regret it. He's a good man. Believe me, I know. He is my brother, after all.  
  
  
  
  
**_  
I tried so hard  
  
And got so far  
  
But in the end  
  
It doesn't even matter  
  
I had to fall  
  
To lose it all  
_**

But in the end  
  
It doesn't even matter  
  
  
  
  
  
"She's so confused," I whispered, standing in the middle of the surreal nothingness of the afterlife.  
  
"She'll pull through," a female voice said as she wrapped her arms around my waist. "And she'll see what's right."  
  
I smiled as I looked at the woman who was my fiancée in a previous life, Alexa. I took her hand and kissed it gently.  
  
"I know. She's already starting to get over her first experience with love. She'll realize that it's time to move on. And I think this time, she'll chose the right man."  
  
Alexa giggled slightly. "Well, I have no doubt there. He is your identical twin, right?"  
  
"Yeah," I said, not picking up on what she was trying to say.  
  
"Who could resist your good looks?" she asked playfully.  
  
I grinned at her comment. "From what I can see, we're very much alike. Only that he's much more of a smart ass," I added good-naturedly.  
  
"Is that a bad thing? Some one needs to lighten the mood every so often," she pointed out.  
  
I nodded in agreement. "No doubt. But he cares for every one of those people, and would give his life for them. Especially Max. She just can't see that."  
  
"She will," Alexa assured me. "Eventually. Give her time."  
  
"If she doesn't realize it soon, they'll be out of time," I said pointedly.  
  
"Yes, that may be true. But they'll get through it. Together. I mean, if we made it, so can they. Right?"  
  
"Right," I said as I turned and walked away with her. And then I realized something.  
  
Everything will work out. One way or another, they'll figure things out. In their own good time. And it will be enough. It'll have to be.  
  
Because in the end, it doesn't really matter.  
  
  
  
A/N: What did ya think? Please R/R, I live for your input, good or bad.  
  
Oh, and if anyone picked up on it, the whole 'Every moment is a chance to turn it around,' came from two movies, 8 Mile and Vanilla Sky. 


End file.
